commbasics

A comment on an earlier post today stated that there were few journalists sitting in the technical sessions of ISSCC because the "lacked the technical depth" to be able to competently report on the subject matter.  Frankly, that kind of attitude really honks me off.  So just for the heck of it, I took 5 minutes looking up the bios of a handful of journalists that cover EDA and semiconductors. Nic Mokhoff of EE Times has a BSEE and has been covering computer technology and research since 1985. Paul Dempsey of EDA Tech Forum  has twenty years as a technology and financial journalist and is the main US correspondent for for UK’s Institution of Engineering & Technology  Ronald Wilson of EDN wa s a design engineer for Tektronix, Inc. developing bus interfaces and participating in processor- and graphics-engine architecture and design, as well as evaluation engineering and software-driver development. He's been covering technology for more...

OK, so my last post kicked up a lot of dust over my comment about rewriting press releases.  See the above headline. When I rewrite something for a client, I intend to make it better, clearer, less fluffy.  I learned to do that kind of writing/editing from 10 years as a daily journalist.  When a traditional journalist rewrites a press release, he screens out as much crap as he can before publishing it in a very abbreviated form.  Usually that includes erasing the quote from a CEO saying how "pleased" he is.  When a blogger rewrites a press release, he does the same editing as a traditional journalist, and then adds perspective, which is what traditional journalists used to be able to do. Then there are traditional journalists and bloggers who don't even look at press releases before the write a story.  They do research and interviews to get a broad picture and write in-depth articles for major national publications.  We call those ...

Reading a story in the SF Chron about the ongoing battle over Gay rights I saw a phrase from the late Harvey Milk that really caught my imagination.   Uncomfortable conversations. My dust-up over the fate of DATE last week is finally petering out, but what I ended up getting out of it is that we are still trying to avoid the truly uncomfortable conversation in the semiconductor industry.  We still want to pursue a philosophical discussion about how important our technologies are but we don't want to talk about what our fiscal responsibility is to expand that discussion beyond our little coffee klatch.  10 years ago we didn't want to discuss the fact that our media was dying from lack of proper investment from the industry.  Now we don't want to discuss the fact that lack of investment will probably kill the last form of industry forum (trade shows and technical conferences) for the same reason.  We are still holding on to the false belief that...

Interesting tweet to day on Karen Bartelson 's Twitter page.  She ponders a survey's question on how much Synopsys will spend on social media this year.  She calls the question a "non sequitur since most of social media is free?" That is a common misconception, but mostly because most people discount the human cost of social media AND they have a limited understanding of what social media actually is.  Let's deal with that last one first.   Social media is any medium that elicits a response from the audience through the medium.  Funny thing is, if a newspaper publishes a letter to the editor on a topic that paper covered, that means the newspaper is a non-electronic social medium.  Radio and television call-in shows also qualify.  Take another step up to email.  If you respond to a piece of spam -- even if it's to pass it on to someone else -- that makes your email a social medium.  Your website ...

Spent the day yesterday at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose and got some input that make s a fitting conclusion to my three parter on what social media does. As I said before, social media, in itself, does nothing.  Its components are just mediums like a piece of paper is a medium.  You decide what to do with it.  That confuses a lot of people because newspapers, radio, TV and even the internet to some degree just seems to "magically" appear with information and little or no cost to us, 24 hours a day.  We're used to getting our information however we want it.  What is happening, though, is that magical, free flow of real information is being overtaken by poorly produced marketing crap and we are losing the ability to parse what is real and what is hype. In talking with a dozen media people yesterday, I see a definite trend.  Those who continue to work in advertising-supported media are depressed and worried.  Those who...

I did a couple of blips on the EE Times DesignLine changes earlier this week and today got my hand slapped, not entirely inappropriately, by Patrick Mannion and Rich Nass.   I didn't say report anything wrong, per se, but it wasn't the whole story.   After Rich and I made nice over the phone, I got more detail.   But there is more to consider.   First let's look at how this whole thing is breaking down. Techinsights has acquired and developed a lot of media properties in the past decade, but hasn't really done a good job at integrating them, which I reported in an interview with Paul Miller a couple of months ago.   The move to replace the contract editors on the DesignLines with staff editors is a step toward that integration.   Patrick has actually been in charge of the DesignLines for almost three years, but they were allowed to operate fairly independently.   By putting the staffers in charge of the sites EETimes print and o...

Dave Maliniak , one of the workhorses at Electronic Design, dropped us a line today to point out that he actually took over the Test and Measurement beat at the magazine back in January.  Totally missed that one.   While I know that means the perennially swamped Maliniak didn't need another bit of work to do (he also covers EDA), the combination actually makes some sense.  Design automation is becoming more of a backend issue and there are some technologies coming down the pike, outside of both T&M and EDA that are going to dramatically alter those industry landscapes.  This makes ED a good bet for seeing the bigger picture.  That, is if Dave can survive the load and ED can start boosting revenue. I'm working on it, Dave.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that Kenton Williston had his contract cancelled to edit the DSP DesignLine at the EE Times supersite.  What I didn't know, until today, is that all of the editors of the DesignLines were dismissed. The DL program was manned by freelancers, including Kenton, Clive Maxfield, and Gabe Moretti, but the work on those pages is now to be brought in house completely.  We can probably expect some significant changes in the format and content, but I am assuming that with Patrick Mannion taking charge, there will be some redesign of Techonline as well. This is significant because the DesignLines had become not only a repository of contributed content, but for ongoing coverage of certain niches, like DSPs and EDA.  Without those freelancers the electronics industries has lost more than a dozen journalists to take meetings and receive news releases. New Tech Press is looking better all the time.

Just heard that RCR Wireless shut down last week and that Reed Business is closing the San Jose office with all the editors now working from home.  That's been the case for the most part anyway with, I believe, Ron Wilson being the only editor still working out of that office.  But it's a sign of the times that the Silicon Valley is no longer considered worthy of a significant office for Reed.

Last week I posted a tweet stating I thought social media was more "attuned to introverts."  As one might expect, introverts agreed and extroverts disagreed.  (For the record I also posted I had had a lot of wine, which is what happens when you spend two R&R days in the wine country.) I thought, it might be worth taking a few moments to explain myself.  I didn't mean to say that extroverts couldn't use social media effectively.  What I'm saying is that social media is more valuable to introverts.  To be clearer, extroverts don't need social media to communicate in this world.  It's just another tool for them.  For introverts, social media levels the playing field for them with extroverts. Let's set the table on this discussion.  I'm an introvert.  When I go into a large social setting and talk with a lot of people, it drains me.  What I really like to do in those settings is find an int...

Kenton Williston dropped me a note this week to let me know that he's left TechInsights as editor of the DSP DesignLine.  Kenton did a pretty good job as a contractor for that site from my perspective and I'm sorry to see him go.  Patrick Mannion is taking over (gee, Patrick, what are you going to do with your free time) along with his duties running Techonline. Kenton doesn't have a line on what's next for him but I recommend him for freelance work.

I've mentioned our VComm event from last January a couple of times and the results are still emerging.  Today, however, I got an unsolicited response from one of the Scottish companies that participated.  Actually got a little teary reading it. "VComm represented an excellent introduction to the American venture capital scene. Not only was the room filled with the right people – they were warmed up, welcoming and ready to invest. The online training from the organizers was fantastic for the novice presenter and seasoned campaigner alike. Your YouTube and New Tech Press videos concisely focused on the key message and importantly only took ten minutes out of the viewer's day.  "By following your hints and tips on successful presenting we have been approached by 5 VC’s with an interest in investing. In turn the venture community is now talking about us and we have seen an uplift in our web traffic stateside as a direct result. The most significant devel...

One of the first interviews I did on State of the Media was with my old friend, Marty Weybret, publisher of the Lodi News Sentinel (which is one of the oldest family-owned daily newspapers left in America).  At the time, the LNS was still doing well but Marty saw the handwriting on the wall.  I've been pushing my friend to get more involved with social media and he finally got onto Facebook and is getting pretty active.  He wrote a note with 10 questions on the future on journalism and asked for my input.  I'm putting it up on his notes, but I thought it would be good for fodder here as well. Does "free on the Internet" mean news now has no economic value? The only reason free content is on the internet is because the people placing it there have not assigned value to it.  Case in point is the Wall Street Journal.  They still charge a subscription to see much of their content.  They got a lot of flack at the beginning of Web 2....

With the news that the General Assembly of Maryland is banning Facebook and Myspace connections, we have an interesting issue before us regarding social media.  Is "big" a good thing or do good things really come in small packages? Some people think Facebook, growing at millions of people every month, is a good place to build your community, but when you have a widespread network, hacker bozos like messing with you.  The reason Mac's are generally immune to computer viruses is that there are not enough people using them for malware hackers to cause the mayhem they like to do.  Facebook and Myspace present the kind of playground the web-vandals like to ransack. But so far, the smaller, more focused players in social media, like Linkedin and Plaxo have been fairly immune to malware.  So what I am wondering is, have we gone past the time of importance for mass media?  Are we, as Seth Godin sees it, becoming a planet of tribes again?   I...

Time Magazine had an article this week on " How to save your newspaper " and guess what?  They said dependence on advertising is a stupid way to run a newspaper. Duh.   So someone else is going to have to foot the bill for real news.  It may be the reader, or it could be sponsored, objective content.  What part of this are we not getting?

Last year I wrote that I'm totally committed to the concept of social media  especially as it relates to technology startups.  I said then that I had not taken a traditional PR client in a year and could not recommend anyone hire anyone else to do traditional PR anymore.  Some readers gave me a thumbs up and others asked if I was feverish.  It is a significant step forward for a former traditional journalist turned PR pro to take, especially one who can smell the social security checks coming over the hill, but I meant it. Sometimes you have to be careful what you say because you will often be asked to back it up at some point. That happened to me and my little PR firm, VitalCom, this week.  As of 4:30 p.m. Pacific time, VitalCom's vital signs ceased after a lengthy illness.  One client has changed it's commitment to traditional PR and is considering a social media platform at a significantly lower cost, and the one client we had that was ...

Brian says now is the time . John says everything is changing not dying. My two cents...they are both right.  Call me if you need help figuring it out.

Vindication. I've been writing and posting for a long time that media and marketing as we know it will come to and end for a LOOOONG time.  Like about 10 years.  Bit by bit more and more people have come to agree that what I predicted has come to pass.  The big question was: What are we going to do about it? I've proposed a lot of ideas but the ideas -- including sponsored content, highly targeted audience, abandoning traditional public relations and advertising for an organized social media approach -- received about as much early support as my predictions. Wednesday, however, everything talked about in this blog was justified with the conclusion of the VComm Venture Faire.  A project 2 years in the making last only 8 hours, but brought together a dozen established and newly funded investment firms with nine innovative technology companies out of Scotland.   You can see some of the reaction to the event here, but the reaction does not indicate ful...

One of the things that really irk traditional journalists bout social media is the protection from libel and slander that many in the blogosphere enjoy.  Since bloggers and posters can maintain anonymity, and because US law protects social media sites against libel posted by individual posters, people can say pretty much what they like. But a story today in the SF Chron shows that protection may be showing a few cracks.  A Foster City dentist is suing both Yelp, an online reviewing site, and a poster that gave a negative review that the dentist says in untrue in large part and libelous. That's good news to me.  As I said, up to now, bloggers and commenters did not have to be responsible in their postings except according the the limits of their own consciences.  Journalists, on the other hand, can be dragged into court unless they can prove their content.  But once our law system starts holding the blogosphere responsible for what is reported, we will ...

(NOTE: I just finished a post that tries to put to an end the bickering over whether blogging is journalism.    The following was written on a plane a couple of weeks ago on the way to Scotland to begin gathering material for a social media experiement.    When I wrote it I had a hard time with the context.    It works much better now that I did the post this morning, so I deleted the previous version and have replaced it with this one. There has been a lot of discussion about where media is going in this country, not just on the B2B space.    Things seem to be changing faster than anyone can keep up and being a journalist just isn't much of a career choice anymore… or some people think. There are some who think print is completely dead, but that's only true in major cities.    If you look between San Francisco and San Jose, you'll find a very lively and profitable bunch of local papers.    They don'...